Migrants Have Been a ‘Godsend,’ New York Schools Chief Says
The New York Times
In an interview, Chancellor David C. Banks said migrants had helped schools that were bleeding students. He also promised a big new role for artificial intelligence.
As the school year opens for an American education system facing multiple crises, one education leader is staking out a curious stance. He is sublimely optimistic.
Public schools in the United States lost more than one million students between 2019 and 2022. The deluge of cash relief distributed during the coronavirus pandemic is drying up. And in a politically polarized era, fresh fights over what students learn in class are continuing to emerge.
But David C. Banks, the New York City schools chancellor, whose national profile rose this spring after his unyielding testimony at a House hearing on antisemitism in schools, argues in a recent interview that the state of urban education is not so bad.
All the woes of urban school districts can be found in New York, a diverse city that is contending with a major influx of homeless migrants. But in a departure from Mayor Eric Adams’s warnings that the migrant crisis is upending city life, Mr. Banks described the arrival of immigrant children as a boon.
As many states retreat from the teaching of race and identity in schools amid rising controversies, the chancellor doubled down on the value of those lessons in New York.
And he said that the rise of artificial intelligence did not represent an alarming threat of chatbot-enabled cheating, but a chance to transform education for the better.
